Disruptions to schooling fall hardest on vulnerable students

Even as schools have returned in full swing across the country, complications wrought by the pandemic persist, often falling hardest on those least able to weather them: families without transportation, people with limited income or other financial hardship, people who don't speak English, children with special needs.

Coronavirus outbreaks in school and individual quarantine orders when students get exposed to the virus make it a gamble on whether they can attend classes in person on any given day. Many families don’t know where to turn for information, or sometimes can’t be reached.

And sometimes, because of driver shortages, it's as simple as the school bus not showing up.

Keiona Morris, who lives without a car in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, has had no choice but to keep her boys at home on days when the bus didn’t arrive. Her two sons have missed about two weeks’ worth of classes because of such disruptions, she said.

Taking her older son to school on the civic bus system those days would mean not making it home in time to get her youngest to elementary school, she said.

“I feel like they’re leaving my kid behind,” Morris said. “Sometimes, he feels like he’s not important enough to get picked up.”

For some families, it’s a matter of not having the private resources to deal with breakdowns in the public education system. For others, language barriers or other communication issues leave them uninformed about things like programs that let students return to school despite virus exposures, as long as they test negative for infection.

And while some students can keep up with school remotely during quarantines, others receive little to no instruction, or they lack internet or devices to connect.

As districts seek solutions, they have to consider that...